Magnetic hard disc drives include transducer heads that read and write data encoded in tangible magnetic storage media. Magnetic flux detected from the surface of the magnetic medium causes rotation of a magnetization vector of a sensing layer or layers within a magnetoresistive (MR) sensor within the transducer head, which in turn causes a change in electrical resistivity of the MR sensor. The change in resistance of the MR sensor can be detected by passing a current through the MR sensor and measuring the voltage change across the MR sensor. Related circuitry can convert the measured voltage change information into an appropriate format and manipulate that information to recover the data encoded on the disc.